The Looking Glass Wars
by IoIngridWeaver
Summary: Journey back to the year 1952 and watch as the bond between soldier and newly recruited spy Nick Fury and a fiery redheaded secretary challenges everything and everyone around them. But secrets have a way of coming to the light. Meanwhile Steve Rogers is about to learn from Phil Coulson how Fury became the man he is, what he lost along the way & the price one pays for power.


"_**Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes just be an illusion."-Javan**_

***********Title: The Looking Glass Wars**

**Summary: ****In the present Steve Rodgers is left reeling when his fiancée is revealed to be a double agent that is now MIA after a confrontation with the Avengers and SHIELD. Fury's reaction leads to Coulson telling the Avengers a secret from Nicholas Fury's past. Flash back to the year 1952. World War II has been over for seven years but now a new war is being fought; the Cold War. Nicholas Fury, a veteran and one of the few remaining soldiers from his unit, is recruited to the fledgling agency SHIELD as one of their field agents. It is here Nick meets secretary and jack of all trades Katy West. As one of the few women and the only African American agent in the agency the pair struggle to find common ground with each other. But when a mission goes wrong and Katy saves Nick at a great personal cost that sends her into the hands of a sadistic Russian general Nick breaks every vow he has ever made and every rule in the book to save her. As Katy heals after six weeks of mind numbing torture a tentative bond forms between the pair that quickly blooms into a passionate, full-blown, and secret affair. But when it is revealed to their superiors the pair must face not only punishment for breaking fraternization policies but the prejudice and threats that come from everyone around them due to the color of their skin. Despite this and everything else against them Nick quits SHIELD and vows to stand beside Katy. But unbeknownst to him Katy is hiding secrets that would destroy them if they were ever to come to the light. But when one of his few friends left is captured by the shadowy organization SWORD Nick takes off to try and rescue him vowing to Katy he will be back. But little does Nicholas Fury know that secrets are about to be revealed. And the fallout will not only break his heart but SHIELD as a whole and will influence and change everyone involved for the rest of their lives. **

**AN: ****This is a prequel to an upcoming fic I plan on writing soon and also a stand alone fic. I have always like Nicky Fury in both the comics and movies but Samuel L. Jackson is one of my fav actors and I love him in the movies as Fury. So this is my attempt to give him somewhat of a back story. Please R&R and no flames please but I welcome critiques so that I can become a better writer. And now on with the show!************

_Steve is sitting in the hallway, his cowl pulled down and his face in his hands. Phil Coulson sighs and sits beside his childhood idol as he struggles with what to say to a man who has just lost everything. A man who has just discovered the woman he loved was a double agent send to grab something from their labs that had been hidden more than fifty years. Something that had sent Fury into his office likely sitting there brooding with a bottle of whiskey and memories. He learns his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. When he opens them Steve is looking at him and Phil decides it is time for a tale to be told. He knows Steve will not share it and the secrets of the past will be safe. "SHIELD was not always like this you know. Once it was very different than it is today. And once there was a soldier named Nicholas Joseph Fury…." _

The first time Katy West ever saw Colonel Nicholas J. Fury she was surprised by what she saw. And ever since the war when Katy was forced to grow up much faster than she ever wanted to nothing really surprised her more. And yet this man standing in front of her with a razor straight posture and hands behind him dressed head to toe in black with sharp eyes and a clean military uniform with skin the color of dark chocolate surprised her. With a name like his as well as his reputation for being ruthless in battle she had expected someone more like a blaze. Instead the man she reminded her of a freezing icicle that would give you hypothermia and then die. Which was worse than burnt alive because with fire all of your nerves would be gone.

Katy chuckled to herself and shook thoughts of being burnt to death out of her mind. This was a problem of hers. She talked too fast and thought too much and had read too much and knew too much. It was a simple mistake of walking into the wrong office in downtown NYC that had gotten her in this position. She was now stuck working as a secretary in a spy agency rather than at university like she had wanted. The year was 1952 and at twenty-four years old she wanted to be someone else damn it. She did not want to be around all of this death and hatred and be looked down upon because of her gender.

But like most things in life Katy did not have any control over what life threw at her. And life had thrown so much at her and she had rolled with the punches; but at what cost? Selling her soul it seemed for a piece of bread?

But no matter. She had a job to do and she would follow it through to the bitter end. No matter how much of her soul she sold or how much or her heart broke in the process.

When Nick Fury first saw his liaison to the higher ups and his boss' secretary named Katy West he thought that someone had to have made a mistake in brining that girl in her. She was a small thing that looked like she should be in school instead of an agency underground bunker.

Barely over fit feet with flaming copper hair and bright green eyes and curves that belonged in the pin up world and not among the black and white world of SHIELD. Her hair was tied back carelessly at the back of her head with some pieces escaping coming down to frame her oval face covered in freckles. Black framed glasses had slid down to the bridge of her nose while pearls were decorating her ear lobes.

She was dressed in a blinding green dress, black stockings, and white pumps that gave her a few inches in height. She looked up at him sheepishly as she looked at the clock that indicated she was almost ten minutes late. Shifting the files that were in her hand she reached out and he in turn shock her hand surprised by the soft hands marked with calluses and the grip that came with it.

Releasing his hand she turned and began to walk "I apologize for being late. Now if you just want to follow me I'll show you to your office." she then turned frenzied and nearly crashed into Fury as he looked down at her with annoyance. She in turn smiled and then looked up at him with mischief in her eyes.

"My name is Katy West. Nice to meet you Mr. Fury. I have a feeling you and I are going to get along just fine."

_He remember her laugh; like bells on the wind loud and hearty. He remembers her lips hungrily against his as he thrust into her never caring about the consequences or the price he would have to pay to keep her. He remembers the stares as her pale hands grasped his dark ones lacing their fingers together as they walked down the street never caring for a moment about what those around them thought. He remembers the protective instincts, the possessive way he would look at her, and the glare he would give anyone who dared to look at what was his. He remembers her sitting beside his hospital bed trailing her finger around his bandaged eye never caring he was now less of a man. He remembers her kissing his eye patch and calling him her pirate. He remembers killing for her and saving her and loving her and never wanting to let her go. He remembers knowing she was his and his alone. He remembers knowing that she owned him; heart and soul and vowing that nothing would ever change that. He remembers the silent beginning, the traumatizing rise, the glorious climax, and the world shaking and bitter end. _

_He sits in the dark staring at the whiskey bottle in front of him drowning in memories he would rather keep buried. Memories of a time when he was happy and believed he deserved to have a life. A home. A family. But then that life had been snuffled out by forces beyond his control. Forces he cursed for taking away the one thing that made him happy and forces he cursed for making her the one thing that destroyed everything he had built for himself. And now sixty years later the memories were as fresh as they ever were. Memories tied to the small object clenched in his hand so hard that he felt a prick and opened his palm to find blood covering a small silver ring with a solitaire emerald on it. An emerald cut with sharp edges that were covered with his blood. A stone the color of her eyes. _

_He clenches his fist and with his free hand he brings the bottle to his lips as the bitter liquid burns down his throat as he desperately tries to drink away the memories. The sorrow. The bitter anger still as strong now as it was then. The hurt and the aching heart. And the love. The love that even sixty years later refused to die. _

"_**When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance." Oscar Wilde**_


End file.
